The more things change - the more they stay the same.

Just under 100 days into the Trump era, our government is once again lurching towards shutdown, and it's all because Donald Trump wants American taxpayers - not Mexico - to pay for his precious border wall.

With a bill to keep the government open due Friday night at midnight - White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is refusing to rule out the possibility of a government shutdown.

"The President has made very clear that he's got two priorities in this continuing resolution -- number one, the increase in funding for the military; and number two, for our homeland border security and the wall. But I'm not going to start to get into -- we are having a negotiation with House and Senate leadership, and to prejudge where it ends up at this point would be -- would not be prudent."

One - if not the biggest - reason the government could shut down is that Trump wants the spending bill to include funding for a border wall with Mexico, and has not said whether he would sign a spending bill that doesn't include it. So are we going to have a shutdown? And if we do, how does that not hurt Trump?

-Thom

(What do you think? Tell us here.)

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10:30pm... Can Le Pen Win & The Impact (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

Tuesday's Daily Stack 

Hour One: Climate of Hope
- Carl Pope, Sierra Club/Climate of Hope (w/Mike Bloomberg)      

Article: "Climate of Hope: Pub Day!" by Carl Pope.

Article: "President Obama: The United States Formally Enters the Paris Agreement" by Tanya Somanader.

Article: "Trump cannot halt America's climate progress" by Michael R. Bloomberg.

Article: "Coal Museum Sees the Future; Trump Doesn't" by Thomas L. Friedman.

Article: "Salt Lake City Makes Historic Commitment to 100% Renewables by 2032" by Katie Pohlman.

Article: "Donald Trump's administration kills funding for California's clean energy electric rail project" by Feliks Garcia.

 

Article: "Bernie Sanders Endorses Democrat Jon Ossoff In Statement" by Chris Bucher.

Article: "Obama Returns To Public Stage, Encouraging Next Generation To 'Take Up The Baton'" by Jessica Taylor.

Article: "Wikipedia founder aims to 'fix the news' with crowd-funded website" by Estelle Shirbon.

Article: "The Working Families Flexibility Act Will Hurt Women And Families" by Linda Meric.

Bill: "H.R.1180 - Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017" by Rep. Roby, Martha [R-AL-2].

Article: "Ivanka Trump booed and hissed after mentioning father Donald at summit in Germany" by Maya Oppenheim.

Article: "Senate staff perplexed by unusual White House private briefing on North Korea" by David Nakamura, Ed O'Keefe.

Article: "The Daily 202: Trump is caving on border wall funding after showing his base that he tried" by James Hohmann.

Law: "Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act", 1930 by Wikipedia.

Site: Alternet

Site: Raw Story

Site: Think Progress

Article: "Rush Holt Jr." by Wikipedia.

Article: "Bank of North Dakota" by Wikipedia.

Book, site: "Web of Debt", Ellen Brown.

Article: "New State Bank Bills Address Credit And Housing Crises" by Ellen Brown.

Article: "Minot train derailment" by Wikipedia.

Hour Two: Kentucky Floats Dental, Vision "Rewards" Program in Medicaid Overhaul... Look Out!
- Neil McCabe, Breitbart News    

Article: "Gov. Matt Bevin's likely Medicaid shake-up scares Kentucky patients" by Deborah Yetter.

Article: "Kentucky floats dental, vision rewards program in Medicaid overhaul" by Emily Rappleye.

Article: "Trump Is Said to Seek Cutting Corporate Tax Rate to 15 Percent" by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Alan Rappeport.

Article: "Trump's Industry, Real Estate, Poses Hurdle to Tax Overhaul" by James B. Stewart.

Article: "Donald Trump reverses campaign pledge to label China 'currency manipulator' in light of North Korea" by Rachael Revesz.

Article: "Trump didn't know 'much' about NATO when he called it 'obsolete': report" by Ellen Mitchell.

Book: Crouching Tiger: What China's Militarism Means for the World by Peter Navarro.

Book: P. T. Barnum - The Art of Money Getting, or Golden Rules for Making Money by P. T. Barnum.

 

Article: "Judge Blocks Seattle Ordinance Requiring Uber To Negotiate With Teamsters" by Daniel Fisher.

Article: "India's Call-Center Talents Put to a Criminal Use: Swindling Americans" by Ellen Barry.

Article: "Trump Is Said to Seek Cutting Corporate Tax Rate to 15 Percent" by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Alan Rappeport.

Article: "New Report Reveals Trump Is Not Punishing Corporations that Offshore American Jobs, but Awarding Them New Government Contracts" by Public Citizen.

Article: "Ann Coulter rejects Berkeley's new invite; GOP students threaten to sue college" by William Wan.

Article: "Alan Berg" by Wikipedia.

Article: "UC Berkeley cancels 'alt-right' speaker Milo Yiannopoulos as thousands protest" by Julia Carrie Wong.

Book: Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole by Ann Coulter.

Book: "A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present" by Howard Zinn.

Book: The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 by Gordon S. Wood.

Book: Who Killed the Constitution?: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.Y Kevin R. C. Gutzman.

Article: "Trump's Indonesian Allies In Bed With Isis-backed Militia Seeking To Oust Elected President" by Allan Nairn.

Article: "Faith, politics, business: Why US Vice-President Mike Pence visited Indonesia" by Jewel Topsfield.

Article: "List of United Nations Security Council resolutions concerning North Korea" by Wikipedia.

Video: President Bush Axis of Evil Speech.

 

Talk Media News Segment:
- Patrick Gavin 

Article: "Trump Is Moving on a Plan to Cut the Corporate Tax Rate to 15%" by Reuters.

Article: "Trump might be willing to forgo border wall funding to avert government shutdown" by Bryan Renbaum.

Site: "Goats for the old Goat".

Book: Loving What You Do: The Elements of a Great Working Life by Ellen Ratner.

Hour Three: Great Barrier Reef..."Terminal Stage" of Climate Change Cancer
- Dahr Jamail, Truthout    

Article: "Great Barrier Reef Reaches "Terminal Stage" as CO2 Levels Rise at Record Rate" by Dahr Jamail.

Article: "Trump's Indonesian Allies In Bed With Isis-backed Militia Seeking To Oust Elected President" by Allan Nairn.

Book: A Farewell to Ice by Peter Wadhams.

Article: "Mass bleaching hits Great Barrier Reef for second year in a row" by Richard Schiffman.

Article: "Release of Arctic Methane "May Be Apocalyptic," Study Warns" by Dahr Jamail.

Article: "Giant Methane Release Possible At Any Moment, Report Claims" by Nicholas Say.

Article: "Trump's First Unconstitutional War" by Michael Stokes Paulsen.

 

Article: "Consumer protection rule targeted by Perdue would benefit campaign donor" by Tamar Hallerman.

Article: "Leadership behind push to kill consumer protections for prepaid cards agreed to $53M FTC settlement" by Mark Greenblatt.

Article: "Watch Live Stream: Sean Spicer Delivers April 25 Briefing" by Cody Fenwick.

Article: "Trump seeks to review national monuments after Obama set record with designations" by Rebecca Shabad.

Article: "Cornel West and Former Sanders Staffer on Movement to Draft Bernie for a New "People's Party"" by Amy Goodman and Juan González.

Article: "The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (Continued)" (Federalist 10) by James Madison.

Bill: "S.515 - United States Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act of 2017" by Sen. Casey, Robert P., Jr. [D-PA].

Article: "Congressional Progressive Caucus Calls for an End to Contractor Offshoring; Asks Trump to Sign a Model Employer Executive Order".

Book: FREEDOM: The End of the Human Condition by Jeremy Griffith.

Site: World Transformation Movement.

Article: "TVA CEO: Coal plants not reopening under Trump" by Jonathan Mattise.

Documentary: Racing Extinction.

Wednesday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET 

 

I'll be talking with Vien Truong, Green For All

 

And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...

 

The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"

 

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